By Lee Newman
Obliteration’s Black Death Horizon is a blackened death metal album. I’m sure you’re very surprised. But more than that, it is a blackened death metal album seemingly attempting to be the quintessential blackened death metal album. Listening to this record is like slipping into a favorite old t-shirt. Even as first-time listeners, we already feel like we know these songs. We understand, implicitly, how all the hits will land. We can predict the coming riff with startling accuracy, since we are familiar with the typical dynamics of a metal track. It feels comfortable right from the beginning – opener “The Distant Sun (They Are The Key)” with its murky noise/church organ intro feels like half of our favorite death metal albums.
Black Death Horizon stops, starts and stomps. It hastens into classic thrash metal, hammers out some blast beats and lays death-doom riffs low. While there’s a lot of stuff here that could be considered “epic”, this symphony of sickness falls a little flat simply because it doesn’t break from the mold in any way. It feels like a comprehensive museum of blackened death metal musical hallmarks. Oh, there’s an atonal, scorching guitar solo? Hey, awesome! Here’s an intro that sounds a bit like Candlemass (“Transient Passage”)? Cool. Is that a riff that begins with a throaty “ough”? Is that a fuzz bass interlude (Ascendance [Sol Invictus])? A tremolo harmony over there? An Incantation riff (“Sepulchral Rites”)? It’s like black/death sightseeing, covering all the basics of the genre in one fell swoop. And like spending all day wandering from wing to wing in a museum, we begin to get a bit bored by the end. Please exit through the gift shop and have a great day, infernal hails to you and yours.
Here and there, we see hints of modernity peeking out of this mélange of classic techniques. The vocals, shrill yelps drenched in reverb, evoke 3rd wave black metal. The production on the guitars is crisp, the bass is meaty and rubbery, and the bottom-heavy drums are thunderous and at times overpowering. Album closer “Churning Magma” features a dissonant, mid-tempo refrain and cracking, warlike drums, which feel a little more like Antediluvian than Autopsy.
While this record is rock solid, it’s hardly revolutionary. Obliteration deserve props for the utter purity of their songwriting. However, as lifelong patrons of metal, perhaps we don’t need to buy the museum membership. We’ve already heard it all.
